


Digging Up Bones

by Charlie9646



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Christmas, F/M, Marriage, Mentions of past self harm, Not a death eater Severus, Pregnancy, death of a character before the fic starts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-15
Updated: 2019-12-15
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:21:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21798262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charlie9646/pseuds/Charlie9646
Summary: Sometimes the past should be left alone, but sometimes we need the past to remind us of how far we have come.
Relationships: Lily Evans/Severus Snape
Comments: 6
Kudos: 29
Collections: Twistmas 2019 - A Dark Remix Xmas Fest





	Digging Up Bones

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [Twistmas2019](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Twistmas2019) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
> Letter to Santa

Lily sat on a threadbare couch going through a pile of boxes. It was nearly Christmas, which her favorite time of year. Today was not a happy time though, or at least it did not feel like it to her. Her husband Severus, parents had died a few days ago, in a car accident of all things. He seemed withdrawn from the whole situation. Withdrawn from life, but most of all withdrawn from her.

She had known the man since they were nine years old. He had been the one to introduce her to magic, to show her what her destiny was. But, in all the years she had known Severus he spoke rather little about his parents, his father though far less than his mother. Lily as a child could not understand such things.

Her parents were kind, loving, and while they were quite strict to her and her sister Petunia, they were never cruel. Looking back on her childhood she understood why they did, what they did. More so now as she was pregnant with her first child. But Severus, the way she had seen him interacted with his parents was quite different than the way she interacted with her own.

But then again his mother had seemed quite different than her own. Eileen Ava Prince Snape was only thirty-eight years old when she died, but if you would have met her before her death you would have guessed she was seventy-eight. Her skin was tired and worn,her eyes every single time Lily saw her eyes we're bloodshot, her cheekbones and eyes were sunken in. The pureblood witch did not speak much to anyone. When she had brought it up to her husband one night at dinner he had told her his mother had been that way all his life and muttered something about Tobias breaking her spirit.

His father, Tobias on the other hand, Lily could easily guess why her husband disliked the man. He drank far too much. Always smelled of liquor when for whatever reason the man insisted on being around them. Both as children and then as adults. She remembered the day they had gone to tell his parents they were getting married, at her insistence, of course. Severus desired not to inform them of their pending union if they must be informed, he wanted to do it by owl.

But Lily insisted, ”you are their only child, Sev, they will be heartbroken if we don't tell them in person. Beyond that, we are having dinner with my family weekend we can spend this evening with your parents. I sent your mother an owl and she seemed happy that we were visiting.”

Severus stared at her blankly his sharp eyes studying her, not unlike a potion ingredient. ”Fine”, he hissed. ”Don't say I didn't warn you, this is going to be quite, uncomfortable.”

It did not go well Eileen made dinner, barely saying a word to anyone as she did so. When Lily had asked her if she needed some help, but the woman quietly hissed under her breath and said, ”I don't need the help of the mudblood, my son dragged out of the gutter.”

Lily said in a harsh whisper at the woman, “Youmarried a muggle and yet you called me a mudblood.”

Severus grabbed his soon to be wife’s arm and said “Just let it be, Lily. She doesn’t like her lot in life so she just wants to make you miserable, like she is.”

Later as they sat at the table Tobias on his third beer of the night. Eileen more playing with her food than eating it. Severus with his long lanky limbs and six-foot frame trying utterly desperately to fold in on himself, and Lily well Lily realized at that moment that maybe just maybe this was not her brightest idea after all.

Tobias in his stupidity that only a man three sheets to the wind drunk could have turned to his son and said, ”how in the world did an ugly, lazy, fool like yourself get such a pretty wife to be? Use some of that freaky magic on her? Put some of that acid-based mess you cook in a chocolate for her? Bewitch her like your mother did to me?”

Eileen stood up from the table and took her uneaten plate of food with her. She said nothing, not a bloody word. Her thin black hair acting as a shield around her face. Her goal seemed to be in life to tune out the rest of the world and maybe her own life along with it. No matter what the woman called her, Lily could only feel pity for Eileen, even if she was a hypocrite, by her nature and her actions.

The woman born in the once noble house of Prince was a shell of who she once was. She was a broken woman who now like the symbol of her Hogwarts house wanted to strike out those who dared come too close.

Severus said to his father, ”Your nothing but a stupid ignorant, muggle, drunk! You wouldn't know what power was if it smacked you in the face. You wouldn't know honor was if it called you out by name. You wouldn't know what hard work was because you have never done it a day in your life!

There are far more important things in life, father, than a pretty face. But, you wouldn't know a God damn thing about that because you have neither a pretty face or anything else of value. Your just a washed-up, stupid, can't even sign his own fucking name muggle drunk. Enjoy your hell father, you earned it. And mother if you ever get up the courage to ask for help we are just an owl away.”

Severus grabbed Lily’s arm not harshly, but still rather firm, ”Come, Lily, let's leave them to their own hell on earth. We can celebrate without two ghosts pretending to be human.”

Normally she may have thrown a fit and insisted that they stay, but on the same token, most parents did not act like Severus’s. They hadn't been back in the house till today, the day they were starting to clean it out after the car accident that took both elder Snape’s lives. And it was just as depressing without them here.

It was as if the walls were soaked in something that seemed to tap into doom and gloom and triple it. Lily realized now what she had not realized in childhood, her childish perceptions long gone, this was a rather horrible place and way to grow up. She promised herself no matter what, their own son would not grow up like his father did.

Her husband coming down the rickety stairs of his childhood home and it snapped Lily out of her thoughts of the past. Severus said nothing as he sat in the armchair and started to dig through a box. His long nimble fingers plucking things out and chucking them in the trash bin near him. His long black hair hung in his face, it covered one intelligent black eye.

Severus’s sleeves we're rolled up to his elbows it showed off his pale arms. He generally tried to hide the small scars that littered his arms, she knew what they were from. She knew the darkness that had surrounded him as a teenager. It was not the darkness of his housemates that surrounded Severus, it was the darkness of his own mind.

The mind can be a dark place he once told her, long ago; as he tried to explain his joy in learning the theory of dark magic. She tried to understand it, but Lily never would be able to. They had been married for four months, she was now six months pregnant. They were comfortable, old friends who knew each other quite well.

Sometimes Lily wondered if they would be married if she was not pregnant. Sometimes she wondered if they had made the right choice. Sometimes she wondered if they were going to end up like his parents at worst and hers at best.

Lily’s parents had married because her mother became pregnant with her sister, Petunia, right after finishing their secondary schooling. They were not that she would describe as totally utterly in love, but truth be told none of her friends parents were, not the muggles she knew before Hogwarts or the magic folk after.

Of their friends, mostly hers, Frank and Alice Longbottom seemed happy as clams, and the little she knew of the Weasleys they were quite happy as well. The rest Marlene and James? Not really. Most pureblood marriages were arranged, and we're more about who's not that closely related to us than that they were in love.

Maybe she had just read too many Princess stories growing up thought Lily. Maybe no one was ever actually ever truly in the type of relationship in those stories. Severus was a good man, he was trying his best through a rather rough time, he had lost both of his parents after all.

Lily plucked a faded and yellow letter from the box she should be going through, she understood this was a box of Eileen’s things. She knew it was not her place to read such things, she was supposed to simply go through the things that were clearly trash and toss them.

Though Severus this morning as they had gotten ready muttered under his breath, ”it would be easier just to burn the house to the ground and be done with it.”

She said nothing, knowing that he was stuck in a rut at the moment and he wouldn't hear reason about such thoughts. It would be easier to simply burn the house to the ground, but that would make a rather big mess and he would live to regret such actions when he was far less upset.

Lily read the letter in her hands, it was not in the precise script that she had seen of Eileen’s before, Tobias could not read or write, and it was not the of adult Severus. It looked like it was done by the hands of a child. But, what should have clued her in, to begin with, was the top of the letter said, ”Dear Santa”.

She thought to herself no matter what Severus said she wanted to save this, it would be something wonderful to show their son when he was a couple years old.

Lily read more of it.

”Hello Santa, my mother told me this year I could ask you for anything. I am six after all and now know how to write quite well. Father said we couldn't go to see you in the store. He's a mean man, Santa, but I am sure you already know that with your naughty list.

He hurts mother, he does things to me like hit me and kick me. He hates me Santa, and I am sure he hates mother too. But she said we can't leave him, or make him go away.

I just don't understand why Santa all I want for Christmas is a new family. A mum who tucks me in at night, a dad who calls me son like Mark’s dad does. I don't want much Santa my new parents can be poor, I wouldn't even mind going hungry sometimes.

I wish someone would love me. Maybe if you can't find me a new family I could live with you and your elves?

Please tell me on Christmas, my room is the first next to the stairs.

From Severus 

Lily set the letter down, she wasn't going to save that unless Severus wanted to, and she doubted that he would. She walked over to the armchair he sat in and kissed his hair, as she said into it, ”You know, I love you right?”

Severus sat down what he was holding and said, ”yes, Lily of course I do, and just you know I love you.”

She sat down on the arm of the chair and said as she placed his hand on her rounded stomach, ”We are family now, Severus, and family means we can tell each other anything.”

He said to her, ”What brought this on? One moment you're going through things and then... You found something, didn't you?”

Lily did not say a word as she got up and retrieved the letter. She handed it to him and then he read it himself. When finished he muttered, ”Why in the world would she keep this? Of all things. She never mentioned this to me or brought the letter up to me. Nor did she show it to my father, because if she had I would have gotten quite a beating for such a thing.”

Severus folded the letter up and tucked in the pocket of his slacks. He stared into her eyes,then shut his own,and then kissed her. His fingers tangled into her hair. Once they had pulled away he said to her, ”I had a horrible childhood Lily, and no I really don't want to talk about it.”

Lily went to say something, but he cut her off, ”Lily, but I will talk to you about it. Another day. Just as we will finish cleaning up this house, but after Christmas. Right now I want to take you out to dinner before we return to Hogwarts. But the truth is Lily the thing I need to say more than anything? Is our son will not grow up like I did. Whatever we end up deciding his name will be, will have a happy childhood. The kind he deserves, and we will never live in a house like this. Or like they did. We may not be a perfect family, but I will try my very best to do right by both of you.”

Lily said to Severus, ”I think we should name him Harry.”

He asked her, ”I thought we were going to name him after your father?”

She said, ”Harry was my grandfather, but also your uncle who pasted away when your mother was young, and I think we should name him after them. To tie him to both our family’s.”

Severus asked, ”what about his middle name?”

She looked away from him, she wanted to say it but knew it might upset him. But, she wanted to do this. She wanted her son to know no matter what happened his parents loved him. The thing was, that started with a meaningful name. Lily said to him, ”I want his middle name if your willing to be Severus, after you.” her hands reached for him, worried that he may pull away from her, but Severus did not.

He said to her softly, ”I think that would be a fine name for our son, but if change your mind I will also support you.” His black eyes speaking the words he dared not to voice. He did not like her suggestion on their son’s middle name, no matter what he said.

She nodded but said, ”is there anything you would prefer?”

He shut his eyes and said, ”I was going to suggest Harry Evan Prince. After your family’s name, I think it also sounds better.”

Lily said to him, ”Okay that can be his name, but our next son will get your name as his middle name no matter what. Though Severus, no matter what your father said there is nothing wrong with your name. I like it myself.”

Severus shook his head, ”Lily, it means stern.”

Lily brushed his bangs out of his face and said, ”No Sev, it means strong whether you see it or not. You are a strong person. Strong to pull yourself up from here; to become one of the youngest Potion’s masters in Britain. Strong because you got help when you were younger, and strong because you didn’t Apparate your father straight to hell and leave him there.”

Severus laughed, “There was a time I considered doing just that, but then I realized it wasn’t a real place.”

Lily said, “from the little I knew of the man, the world would have been a better place without him.”

They put the things that were left of Severus’s parent's lives away, they both were gone, the people who both loved and hated each other. They hated each other so much that they could not bear to separate, but yet they could not treat each other with love and respect. Lily wondered to herself what had made them this way. What had broken these two people so painfully that they felt the need to drag their only child down with them?

They went have dinner with her parents that night, Petunia was not there. Her sister refused to spend time with her. Her sister’s husband did not like those with magic and never would.

**************************

She did not believe in monsters because there was no such thing, the only monsters Lily had ever met in all the years of her life we're human. The beasts muggles and magic folk claimed to be considered to be monsters were usually far less dangerous than the people calling for their deaths.

James Potter told her when she was doing her shopping two weeks ago that she was married to a monster. But, also that there were whispers of Slytherins joining this gang that called themselves the ”death eaters” and that she better keep a close eye on her husband.

She wanted to kick him in the shins, not unlike she did at thirteen. But instead, she told him, “There are evil men and women of all houses, Potter, just as there are good. The head of the Auror department is a Slytherin are you questioning if he’s in that gang? No? Then leave my husband out of your witch hunt.”

Two weeks after that Lily sat on the couch on Christmas Eve. Her swollen feet were in Severus’s lap. His narrow fingers rubbing her arches. They hadn’t talked about the letter to Santa that he had written as a child. Though she knew it sat in his desk drawer.

She asked him softly, “Sev, why are you keeping that letter, all it does is bring you pain.”

Severus answered her, “Because Lily, I need it to help remind me to be a better parent than my own. In some ways, it feels like digging up the bones of my past, but the thing is sometimes we need the bones of our past, the people who we once were to remind us to be better. It’s the same reason why I haven’t bothered to use a potion on my scars, they remind me how far I have come, which shows me I can do so much more. But also so I can try not to do it again. We need to remember the past so we don’t repeat it in the future, even if it hurts.”


End file.
